


'Til Death

by shinealightonme



Category: Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
Genre: Brotp, Case Fic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Serious Detectives Who Don't Act Like Silly Teenagers At All Nope Not Even Once, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: "Ah, shite, they're never going to let us live this down."





	'Til Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resistate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/gifts).



> Happy Yule, resistate! I had a blast revisiting these characters and I hope you enjoy this story.
> 
> Warning for brief mentions of non-graphic animal harm & non-graphic offscreen murder.

I spend the morning Antoinette's slaving over paperwork planning my approach. Buy the good coffee from the joint down the road, instead of the shite the precinct turns out. Don't go so far as to tell her she looks good this morning or ask after her mum -- you don't work with someone for a year and make a mistake that obvious -- but I nod at her, friendly, as I set the coffee down on her desk, and I don't slag her about the paperwork.

Apparently I needn't've bothered.

"Serial killer?" Antoinette whistles low between her teeth. "And it's not even my birthday, Moran, you charmer."

" _Possible_ serial killer," I emphasize. I don't need Antoinette to mock me about my runaway imagination when this turns out to be nothing but a series of coincidences. "O'Neill thinks his murder-suicide's part of a pattern."

Antoinette sips her coffee and makes a face, even though it's just how she takes it. I've got a theory going that she doesn't actually like coffee, but if that's so she's done a hell of a job forcing it down for the last year. "Did he miss the part where these are murder-suicides? The perp in those is dead at the end, so unless he thinks he's got a zombie killer on his hands -- "

"He doesn't think it was a murder-suicide. The victims'd only just come back from a marriage counseling retreat -- "

Antoinette gives me an exasperated look: _and there's the psychology of it all wrapped up for you, Moran._

" -- and everyone says they'd been getting on loads better, proper happily married couple and all."

"Right, so when your boy does lose it and off his wife, he feels bad enough about it to off himself too, instead of doing a runner or making up some story about intruders."

"Probably," I admit. "But O'Neill turned up two other murder-suicides in the last two years that went on the same retreat. He wants us to look into it."

"He wants _us_ \-- " no missing that emphasis " -- to look into it?"

She's really saying, _because if you've got a shite job, give it to the Bitch?_ Half a year since Antoinette caught on that the whole squad didn't have it out for her, half a year since O'Kelly and Breslin and McCann were all out and took the normal patterns of life with them.

Things've been changing, both inside and outside Antoinette's head, but it's still early days and she's never been accused of being an optimist.

I can't say I'm surprised she'd think this is a dead end job at best and a set up at worst, but -- well, I have been accused of being an optimist before. Usually by Antoinette.

"It is on account of you, actually." I say it as light as I can manage, to make it clear there's nothing sinister about it.

That only gets me the narrow-eye glare that Antoinette uses on the most hardened suspects. "Out with it. Whatever part you're holding back because you think I won't like it, give it to me now."

So I give it to her.

She spends a good ten seconds debating chasing me out of the room -- I _see_ her glance out the window and take in that it's raining, and then I see her give up, _ah, hell, too much work_.

"Fine," she says. "But when this all turns out to be a clean-cut domestic, you're the one who has to break it to O'Neill."

"Fine," I say. "Grand."

She stands up, a handful of paperwork ready to be filed off, and adds, as though it just occurred to her, "Oh, also, you're going to owe me a pint. For the rest of our lives," and then she takes my coffee as she swans off. Which doesn't count against my theory at all, since she's only taking it to stop me enjoying it.

"You drink too much anyway, alco!" I call after her. Most of the squad ignores it; they all call each other a lot worse. Meehan looks at me, nervous, but that could be anything from _still getting used to being a murder D_ nerves or _can't tell how to read the squad yet_ nerves or _Jaysus, Moran is courting his death picking a fight with Conway_ nerves.

I smile a reassurance at him, since Antoinette's not around to laugh herself sick at me trying to mentor the rookie, and then I haul myself off to Undercover.

-

"Would you look at that," Antoinette says, flipping her new ID over. "Someone in Undercover was out sick the day they handed out creativity."

"Easier to remember anyway," I say. "Not like we're getting a load of time to learn to respond to something new."

She snorts. "If you think I've ever responded to _Annie_ in my life -- "

"Grand, so there's your challenge for you," I say. I do think the techs could have dug a little deeper than _Sean and Annie Conner_ , but I'm more annoyed at the photo on my card. I look like I'm in the middle of a stroke.

Antoinette looks perfect in her ID photo, of course. Not that she can't take a bad photo -- I've seen enough of them, mostly off her mate Lisa's phone, because Antoinette's mates are all the kind to keep bad photos of each other and trot them out at any opportunity. But among the techs, messing with Antoinette counts as messing with Sophie, and no one dares mess with Sophie. I only wish I could get myself under that protective umbrella. I've got a feeling this photo is going to make the rounds of the Castle for the lads to snicker at.

Though if they do, that'd be a blessing on it's own. Means they'll have to take a break from hassling us about passing as a couple. That's what Antoinette's worried about -- she'd sighed hugely putting on her wedding band, "ah, shite, they're never going to let us live this down" -- and I'm more worried than I'd admit that it could push us back to where we used to be. Antoinette giving back any hassle ten-fold, no one wanting to get within a mile of her. If any of the lads get nasty about this, real nasty, no telling how it could play out.

But if they don't. If they can just give us a normal hassle like they'd give any of the lads who pulled a shite assignment. If Antoinette can see it for what it is. We still aren't popular on the squad, exactly, but there's more respect there than there used to be, and with Antoinette letting her hackles down things've become almost comfortable. O'Neill reaching out for a favor feels like an olive branch, like maybe -- 

_This is why Conway calls you a fool optimist_.

"So what are Sean and Annie," I hit the names a little harder than I need to, just to see if I can force a laugh out of Antoinette; not much, but I count it as a win, "in couple's therapy for?"

"Don't see any need to get fancy," Antoinette says. "He's a pint-or-six with the lads after work guy. She's a no-fun harpy who reads pop-psych self-help and wants him to be more _present_."

"And you think Undercover's lazy," I tell her. "Don't sprain yourself thinking up anything too fancy there."

"I'd only confuse you making you remember anything fancy."

"Ah, and you've given yourself such an acting challenge being the no-fun harpy."

"Fuck off, I'm a treasure. Hollywood's gonna discover me."

"And there's me without a partner, then."

"Poor little Steve," Antoinette says, and climbs into the driver's seat.

-

Poor little Steve is feeling a lot poorer and littler by the time Sean and Annie Conner get all settled into their lodgings for the weekend: moldy old cabin, one lamp, toilet in a separate building out back. The roof holds the rain off, just.

"Bad news," Antoinette tells me, setting her bag down with a thump. It's some hideous designer thing we pulled from evidence, case long-solved and never claimed. I think she gets a kick out of muddying it up. "There's definitely no serial killer. This was, for sure, a murder-suicide."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because spending a weekend in this hut would drive anyone to the breaking point."

I snort. "Get moving, wouldja? Sean and Annie have to make a first impression."

"Quit invalidating me, Sean Conner." Antoinette makes a face. "God, what an eejit name."

"Nice job keeping in character."

"I am in character." She starts pulling her hair up and back, some complicated 'do I've only seen her bother with for nights out with her mates. "Every last thing about you is getting on my nerves, right?"

"I'm starting to wonder if there isn't more going on here," I say. "Subtextual, like."

"When I've got a problem with you, Stephen Moran, it won't take any fancy deep reading to figure it out," she says, pure Conway despite the 'do and the sleek little blouse, which is also courtesy of evidence and is practically see through.

Then she puts on Annie Conner -- not an obvious shift, a twitch of her posture so she's leading with her hips, a small pout that pulls different lines on her face. She looks exactly like Antoinette Conway, and she's a completely different person.

She's a lot better at this sort of undercover thing than I am, but she'd only call me a lick-arse if I told her that, so I pull on the glum sort of look I think Sean Conner would have if his nagging wife had pulled him to live on a hippie commune in the woods to talk about his feelings, and I follow her out of the cabin.

-

To be fair to O'Neill, he wasn't just grasping at straws when he said there was something fishy with the marriage counseling angle; the three couples that'd died in the last two years, apparent murder-suicides, all had the same marriage counselor and had attended the same couples' retreat shortly before their deaths. This despite the fact that it cost an arm to book a weekend there, and the fellow running it wasn't even married.

("If they want a single fellow to give them a load of bollocks about how to be married, they ought to go to the church," Antoinette had scoffed, "at least the priests give it away free.)

O'Neill is covering all the usual angles for the marriage counselor, but he's got a staff of a dozen people and we've no records that show which of them if any spent time with the victims. If it even was anyone on staff. O'Neill's floaters are still tracking down guests who attended the retreat at the same time as our vics.

(Antoinette isn't a fan of that theory: "Anyone a big enough moron to sign up for this program three times is too stupid to get away with one murder, never mind _six_."

"Could be only the last ones were murder."

"Could be none of them are murders," Antoinette says, eyes a mile wide with fake-excitement, "Could be it's a contagious disease, just looks like knife wounds, think we should get health services on it -- "

"Ah, save it for your big Hollywood career.")

Enter Annie and Sean Conner, to get the inside scoop.

Antoinette focuses in on the shrinks soon as we arrive at base camp, so I drift over to chat up the other guests. Sure it was a long shot, but that'd only make it the better for gloating if I was right.

No joy. None of the couples -- and there were five total, counting Sean and Annie -- had ever been to this program before. I do ask a couple of the lads how they heard about this place, in case any of them cops to knowing any of the victims, but no joy there, either. Seems the head shrink had gotten a write up in a couple of blogs, which accounts for half the couples, and the other half got referrals from friends, all still in the land of the living.

I sit and sulk with the lads for a bit anyway, for the sake of building my cover. Antoinette's doing a round of the wives, probably getting the same information I've dug up. She keeps shooting little glances my way, which are all followed by whichever wife she's talking to shooting a little glare at her husband.

I snort into my water glass -- no booze when you're working on the foundations of a marriage -- and figure that if Antoinette can't catch a serial killer this weekend she'll settle for hurrying along a couple of divorces.

We all get a bit of food into us and then the staff has us walking out along a dirt path. It's all but freezing out and the sun's been down hours; probably for the best there wasn't any beer with dinner. I take my steps as careful as I can in the uneven dark, not so much worried about staying on my feet as much as -- 

"Oof," Antoinette says, slamming into my side and grabbing at my arm like it's a lifeline.

\-- as much as I don't want to be the first one to fall.

"Christ, Annie," I say, obnoxious as I can. "Your mother should've called you Grace."

One of the fellows ahead laughs at that. His wife gives him a slap. I might be doing my part for the dissolution cause, myself.

"You know, Sean, if you can't even be supportive _physically_ \-- " Antoinette starts, a voice on her like a thousand warnings away from the altar.

"Hush." One of the shrinks, with what is sure to be the first of many unwelcome comments. "Walk the path with your partner. Drink in the silence."

"Right, loads of silence around Annie," I mutter, and immediately trip over my own feet. Antoinette laughs and doesn't lift a finger to catch me. Maybe a bit of counseling'd do us some good after all.

Though I doubt the counseling they're serving up here'd do anyone any good; another twenty minutes trudging along in the dark to end up at a fire pit, and we've all got to work together as a team to get a fire going. Antoinette and I do our part for teamwork by sitting right out.

Then it's storytelling time, all the couples going around and sharing favorite memories of each other.

("I'd rather a ghost story," Antoinette mutters at me, when there's a bit of hubbub over a log rolling out of place.

"Aye, ghost of relationships past," I mutter back, and she's got a pout on her a mile wide to cover up for the split second smile in her eyes.)

Antoinette spins some fairy story about Sean coming saving her when she was stranded out in the countryside on a rainy day when her mate's car broke down.

"Of course, the way he looks at Lisa -- " she starts, shooting me a barb; it's my turn to hide a laugh. I am not too big a man to admit that Antoinette's mate Lisa _terrifies_ me, and they both know it. Anytime I bump into her, Lisa pets my hair and purrs about how she just _adores_ gingers, which usually ends with my face going red and Antoinette laughing her arse off.

"Ah, leave it, Annie-baby."

I get a face-full of dead leaves for that one, and we both get scolded about our attitude. It's worth it.

-

I take a piss in the outhouse and splash my hands in the rusty old sink -- I guess indoor plumbing would be too modern a distraction from our deep abiding love, or something -- and I'm about ready to head inside and turn in for the night when I hear it.

_Steve_

I freeze. It doesn't quite sound like Antoinette, but who else here would it be? None of the lads here are named Steve ( _two_ of them are Patrick; Undercover isn't the only one lacking for creativity).

_Steve_

"Annie?" I whisper back. The cabins aren't too spread out, and I don't want someone overhearing me using the wrong name. Which Antoinette would've thought of, so if she's calling me _Steve_ \--

I break out in a sweat, cold as it is. I was only in the jacks a moment, and Antoinette'd been inside the cabin; what could've happened in that time?

_Steve_

I flick a glance at the cabin, but it looks just the same as before; door's not busted in or anything.

Then I swear, internally, and head off after the voice.

I tromp a few minutes through the woods, making an unholy racket. No sign of Antoinette. I pause for a second, leaning one hand against a tree, and try to get a sense of where her voice was coming from.

No telling. I'm the next furthest thing from a woodsman, but all the same I don't see any sign of anyone having been this way any time before me. And whoever'd been calling my name hadn't sounded like she was in trouble; barring any trouble, why would Antoinette go tromping around out here in the dark? She the absolute furthest thing from a woodsman.

But someone'd called me Steve.

"What're you up to," I mutter, and pull my hand off the tree.

It sticks as I pull it away.

Great; and now I've gone and got sap all over my gloves. I go to wipe it against the tree before I catch a whiff.

That isn't sap.

Lift my hand up again to be sure, but I already know it's blood.

I'd love to pull my firearm just then; but it's still dark out, and no sign this is anything but the leftovers from a dead bird or a hiker's scrape.

Nothing except the amount of it. There's blood sticking across the fingers and half the palm of my glove. Tacky, not fresh, but not all the way dry yet either.

I pull out my phone and switch on the torch function, hoping there really isn't anyone around; I'm making myself a lovely target in the dark.

I hope it again when I get a look at the blood. Nothing natural or accidental about this; there's a circle, neat like it was done with a painter's brush and as wide across as my forearm.

I snap a picture and take a quick survey of the area around me, flashing the light around since I've already given myself away to anyone watching. Still nothing that looks like Antoinette's been this way, and no other markings on the trees. If there is something out here to find, it's going to take more looking than me and a cell phone.

I stand perfectly still for a minute, but I don't hear my name again, don't hear any sounds of anyone moving around.

Back to the cabin, then; there's a proper torch there, I can grab it and be back here in a minute --

Antoinette's lying on the bed when I step inside, pretending to read one of those _Women Are From Venus And Men Can Go Fuck Themselves_ books.

The door shuts behind me.

"There you are," she says, putting the book down. "I was starting to worry about your prostate, which is really more thinking about your prostate than I want to do."

"Were you outside just now?"

Antoinette blinks at me, and then points down at her bare feet at the end of her long bare legs -- she's already in her sleep things. "What, trotting around hoping to get a nice case of frostbite and maybe step on a used needle while I'm at it? No thanks."

"You didn't call me?"

She puts the book down and sits up. "No. What happened?"

I give myself a little shake. "Found something weird out there," and I show her the picture on my phone.

She purses her lips. "Doesn't mean it's connected. Lots of weird superstitious practices this far out from the city; nothing to do round here but screw a sheep and make up ways to keep the devil away."

"Lot of superstitious sheep-fanciers breaking into a private campground, you figure?"

"Or one of the other couples read up on voodoo rituals to hold their marriage together. You said it was fresh," Antoinette points out. "So it wasn't there when any of the victims were here."

"No," I concede. "But who knows what was?"

She shoots me a dark look. "Ah, you're after keeping me up all night, aren't you?"

"Well, you wanted to hear a ghost story."

"Right, that's what spooks me, made-up stories about dead folks. It's not like I don't hear about enough real dead folks." She gets out of bed and starts shoving her trousers back on. "Better show me your big spooky tree."

-

We don't hang around for long. If the artist does come back, we'd be hard-pressed to explain what Annie and Sean are doing outside so late, and neither of us has a hope of sneaking around the woods unnoticed. We stay up a bit looking out the window of our cabin with the light out, but there's no sign anyone's on the prowl.

"No, they've done what they meant to do," Antoinette says. "Question is what they think it's going to accomplish."

So we head to bed. Between the cold and the hour and the drudgery of walking through shrubs, I drop right off, without even a chance to warn Antoinette off snoring.

When I wake up, she's nudged me right over to the edge of the mattress. It's those long limbs on her, shoving and kicking even when she's out of it.

"Always thought it was supposed to be exciting, sleeping with your partner." I try to stretch out the crick in my spine. Doesn't help that the mattress is some all-natural crap that feels like sleeping on dirt. "Dead sexy and all that."

Antoinette snorts. "In your dreams, Moran." 

"Nightmares, more like." If I were a lesser man, or had a death wish, I'd point out that she had morning breath on her that could raise the dead.

-

Breakfast is an odd affair. They've got us all making our own food. For the price tag on the weekend, you'd think it could've included catering. But they're doing it up as a teamwork and communication thing; Annie and Sean are put in charge of scrambling eggs for the whole crew, only Annie's not allowed to use her right hand and Sean's not allowed to use his left.

"Come on, Annie-baby," I say, wrapping an arm around her. I figure playing like a three-legged race is our best shot at getting through breakfast and onto the useful bit of the day. "You're always saying you want us to be closer."

Antoinette doesn't have to fake anything for that glare she gives me. I've hit gold with _Annie-baby_.

After we've ingested runny eggs and burned potatoes they trot us along for a two-hour hike out to a creek. We've got to build a bridge with our partner and walk over it together. I feel like I'm back in school, trying not to snicker loud enough with my mates to get the evil eye from the teacher. The whole time we're building, the shrinks are talking to us about trust.

"And how'm I supposed to trust him when he's always flirting?" Antoinette asks.

"Sean can't return trust where no trust is shown," the shrink says, and I want to argue with that even though it's coming down on my side; by that logic, trust isn't even possible. "Maybe he flirts because he doesn't feel secure in your commitment to the relationship."

"My commitment?" Antoinette asks, all mock outrage. "I was the one that wanted to get married, and him holding off 'til things were just right, and his mam turning up every Sunday to hint at when're we going to give her grandkids." She sighs, suddenly wistful. "Like I'm the one waiting. I'd only love a little babe to call my own."

I have to hit myself round the shins with a plank of wood to cover up the choking noise I make at the thought of Antoinette with _a little babe to call her own_. You could put the Christ child Himself in her arms and she'd put Him down on the first flat surface she could reach.

She doesn't make a sound, but she doesn't need to. I can tell all the same that she's laughing at me. No more than I deserve for _Annie-baby_.

-

They split us up men from women after we get across our bridges -- couple of the fellows take theirs at a sprint. The men all get a soft-voiced lecture from the pretty-librarian-looking shrink, all about how society teaches us to repress our feelings and prevents us from being real partners to our wives. I listen close enough I can make the right facial expressions, but I'm looking around me the whole time. No defaced trees, no dead animals hanging about, no one looking suspiciously at ease walking around the woods, or suspiciously jumpy about it either.

None of the other blokes look like they're paying any better attention to the shrink than I am, though I'm guessing they don't have the same excuse I do.

"Look, that all sounds good, I'll give you that," I tell the shrink when she gives us an opening for questions. "Sure the lads at work don't go asking me about my feelings all the time, but that's just how it is. All this you're talking -- well, it sounds like some of that rot Annie's gotten into, astrology and feminine energy and crystals and all that."

The fellows all nod me on. One of Patricks gives a little shudder at the word _crystals_. Christ, their marriages are all in for it, but that's not my problem.

"If Annie's exploring her spiritual side -- " I go back to nodding and making my face look attentive-but-dim and ride out the lecture about how I ought to listen to my wife when she goes on about the planets controlling her moods.

"But it's not _real_ ," I say. "Magic and symbols to ward off the devil and all that."

"I admit," the shrink says with a patronizing little smile. I've seen that trick a thousand times off Antoinette, the _I'm cool, I'm on you're side, but let's humor these losers_ look. Antoinette pulls it off a lot better. "It strikes me as a little fanciful, too. But you'll find a lot of educated, reasonable people have an interest in spiritualism. Dr. Campbell's actually made a study of it. Maybe he could help you talk to Annie about what calls to her about her beliefs."

The morning doesn't net anything more interesting than that. Lunch is cold sandwiches, made downright luxurious by the fact that we don't have to make them ourselves and we get to eat them sitting down with both hands.

I pass on to Antoinette that Dr. Campbell's got an interest in the occult.

"He'd be the only one," she said. "The shrinks both looked at me like I was mad when I started talking about horoscopes. Would've thought a place like this would be lousy with hippies. _If_ that circle's connected to anything, it'll be through him."

"Could be campground staff," I argue. "Or another patient."

Antoinette shakes her head. "Asked about that, too. No repeat customers in the last year; the shrinks are all dead proud of their success rate. More likely their old customers are too busy getting divorced to come back."

"Who's to say that's not a success?"

Antoinette snorts.

"What'd they talk to you all about after we split, anyway?"

"Had us all trying to put ourselves in our fellows' shoes," she answers. "Think they were trying to make a point about patience but they were so wishy-washy about it that it could've been just the opposite."

"Not surprised," I say. "I'd make a better marriage counselor."

"Ah, sure you would."

"What, you don't think I could? Just cause I'm single?"

"Cause you just said divorce is a success."

"Well, sometimes it is. Maybe that could be my specialty, the couples that need someone to tell them when it's time to throw in the towel."

"Shit or get off the pot therapy," Antoinette says dryly.

"Sure, why not?"

"Better you than me. I'd just tell them all to split up."

"Just give 'em the same advice you'd give a D having trouble with their partner."

"I like that. 'The key to any good partnership is communication, trust, and making fun of your partner when they get sick over dead bodies.'"

"Don't forget about getting pissed together at the pub."

"Right, that's key."

"And telling the gaffer that your partner's daft idea was a team decision."

"When've I ever had a daft idea?" Antoinette demands.

"Never," I say. "They were _our_ daft ideas."

She smiles. "Ah, Sean, you and me might make it after all."

-

The couples around us start getting called for two-on-one sessions with Dr. Campbell himself. The rest of us get some time to ourselves to explore the wilderness together. For me and Antoinette that translates into hiking around trying to get a signal on our phones and looking for any more blood.

We only have slight success with the first and none at all with the second; Antoinette gets through to Sophie long enough for Sophie to confirm she got our text with the picture. She'd trawled a bunch of New Age websites and discovered a circle could mean about a hundred different things, from rebirth to eternity to someone needing a new tire for their bicycle. She's starting to poke around Dr. Campbell's web presence, too, in case there's anything fishy, but so far, no glory.

I half-listen while Antoinette laughs at Sophie's jokes and pours on the gratitude. From anyone else it'd sound like flirting, and I've a theory that it is for Antoinette, too, but if I still can't tell whether she honestly likes her coffee I'm not holding my breath figuring this out.

We haven't had two-on-one session yet by the time we have to start prepping dinner. They've got us fishing for our own meals. Which, if I'm supposed to be a modern man who's in touch with my feelings, it feels like they shouldn't be encouraging me to kill animals to provide for my woman, but I can't say that any part of the weekend has been big on thematic cohesion.

"Can you believe people sign up for this shite?" Antoinette asks, scraping a knife along the scales of her fish and making a total hash of it. The face on her: like she'd never seen a dead thing before. "Of their own free will?"

"Which shite, the camping or the marriage?" I cast my line back into the water. So far Antoinette has been the only one to catch anything; maybe Sean is learning a lesson about modern gender roles after all.

" _Both_."

I could poke more fun at her, but I've a spike of honest curiosity. Leftover from listening in on her and Sophie, maybe. You don't keep secrets from your partner, not ones that matter; I wouldn't classify either of our love lives as being something that matters, but. A person wonders, when they spend so much time with someone, about all the parts that they don't get to see.

"Don't think you'll get married, then?"

"Oh, like you could see me married."

"I don't really see how anyone does it," I admit. "But if you wanted to. Yeah, I could see it."

Antoinette doesn't answer right away. The knife falls still, though the fish is still a mess of scales and guts and flesh.

She says, "When I picture myself as an batty old lady, there's always a swarm of grandkids around. I don't suppose I can have the grandkids without having the kids first."

I shrug. "You can have a kid without having a man. Don't see why you can't have grandkids without having kids."

"Ah, sure, just go to the store and pick some out, like a litter of puppies." She shakes her head and goes back to mutilating the fish.

"Or you could marry a fellow whose got a herd of them already." The moment's passed, whatever gravity there was, so I add, "hell, you could be a granny tomorrow if you really want."

Antoinette overdoes the innocence, "I wonder if anyone would get suspicious of Annie pushing Sean into the river," and a fish steals the bait right off my hook.

-

We have our two-on-one session with Dr. Campbell; it's depressingly easy to flip it around so that he still thinks he's interviewing us when we're interviewing him. He doesn't own up to any occult beliefs weirder than reading the daily horoscope, though I guess blood circles aren't a first date topic of conversation.

Antoinette drops that we heard about him from the Murphys, and he puffs up with pride at how much progress he'd helped them make. If he knows that they've been dead for two weeks, he's doing a fine job of keeping that fact hidden. And the longer we talk to him, the less convinced I am that he can do a fine job of anything.

The only thing of note is that he gives us his "private number" as we're leaving -- says it like that, too, a couple of times; he must figure it sounds more impressive than _cell phone_.

"Nothing dodgy about that," Antoinette says, crumpling up the card as we stumble back along toward our cabin.

"Try this on," I say. "He gets obsessed with the wives -- "

"Maybe he's got his eye on you," Antoinette counters. "He could have a thing for gingers. Don't count yourself out."

"My ego's fine, thanks for checking. Either way, he gets obsessed with one of the wives, or one of the husbands, or with the couple as a unit. Keeps too close an eye on them after they leave." I shrug. "Could be motive."

"Could be," Antoinette says, like she doesn't have an opinion.

Antoinette always has an opinion.

"But you don't like him for it," I say.

She shakes her head. "No."

"Nah, me neither."

We're most of the way to the cabin before I speak again.

"Where does that leave us?"

Antoinette's turn to shrug. "With a murder-suicide. Same place we started."

It doesn't sit right with me, but I can't tell if that's my instincts trying to give me a poke or if it's just disappointment -- that there wasn't a big solve in it for us, that there were three unconnected killers instead of one, that the mess of human life is as small and fragile as all that.

"'Til death do they part."

"At least you can admire how literal they were."

"Not really."

Antoinette thinks. "Nah. Not really."

-

I come to while it's still pitch dark out. At first I think it's because Antoinette's kicked me -- she'd tell me to shove off if I bought her a pedicure, but someone needs to do something about those talons of hers -- only then I hear it again.

 _Steve_.

Antoinette is still in bed with me, snoring and radiating heat and taking up the entire mattress. I shake her awake and she grumbles, "hands to yourself," which is enormously hypocritical for the woman who near punched me off the bed.

"Did you hear that?" I ask.

Her eyes are bright in the darkness. I can see her coming alert, listening and thinking.

"No."

I listen hard, but there's nothing. "It came from outside."

She's up and pulling on a coat without a moment's hesitation, without complaining about me dragging her out into the cold. I'm sure that'll come, later, but for now we're both on the job, listening hard for something that may not be there.

I don't hear anything else, and just as I'm starting to feel foolish, convince myself it was a dream, Antoinette grabs my elbow and points.

My eyes dart straight over where she's pointing. There's a dim light out in the trees, off behind one of the Patricks' cabins.

"Would be out in the trees," I mutter.

Antoinette bows and sweeps a hand out in front of her: _after you._

The next bit is sheer bloody torture. I'm walking slow as any human has ever moved, trying not to make a noise, flinching when branches and brambles do their worst. Even knowing that Antoinette's going through the same doesn't cheer me up. It only makes me wish there were a clear path she could've taken, gotten around and ahead of me so we wouldn't be coming up blind on whoever's poking around the woods in the middle of the night.

It feels like it's going to last forever, and then all of a sudden I get close enough to see the source of the light. There's a lantern sitting on a tree stump, an old school kind of thing, open flame in a glass tube.

I don't pay it too much attention, because there's a man standing a few feet away holding a knife.

He hasn't seen us, got his back half-turned to us, so I drop low and still and hope he continues not to see us. I can feel Antoinette doing the same.

There's something lying in a lump next to his feet, bigger than a rat and smaller than a dog; that's the best I can make out.

While we watch, he sets the knife down -- sticks it point first into the ground -- and touches the dead animal. His hand comes away bloody. He sets his fingers on the tree.

I look over at Antoinette; if we want to approach him, the time to do it's when he hasn't got the knife in his hand.

She shakes her head and takes a tiny step away.

It's the kind of thing that's going to be funny years from now, a pint or two into an evening at the pub, but for now it's excruciating: the same desperate slow silent walk, only this time we're doing it backwards and we can see the suspect just in front of us. I don't think I breathe again until we're back in Sean and Annie's cabin.

"You recognize him?" I ask Antoinette; she's the one that's good with faces.

"Saw him coming in on our first day," she says, "groundskeeper or caretaker, whatever they call it round here."

"Right. We'll call O'Neill in the morning, tell him to pull up records on the campground's employees, see if we can ID him and start them digging into his records."

We get our phone calls out of the way first thing, while it's still getting light out; one to O'Neill, another with Sophie, short and to the point on both. Between us all we figure the name of the man who's been wandering around cabins while people are sleeping in them, painting with animal blood, which O'Neill agrees is suspicious enough behavior to be worth checking up on, even if we don't have anything that ties it to our case.

And then we're back to being Sean and Annie for one last day.

It ought to be a relief to know that none of the shrinks are serial killers, but oddly the fun's gone out of it. There's another adventure in trick cooking, and then some horrible game with a rope, and then more talking about our feelings, and I keep Sean reluctant and grumpy, for the look of the thing, but I'm honestly wondering what's the point.

And then I catch Antoinette looking at me, a very knowing, Conway look in her eye, and she tearfully confesses to the shrinks and all the couples that she had a snog with my boss last Christmas. Which gives me the horrible visual of Conway snogging O'Kelly, which she knew was going to happen, and now I've got to choose between vomiting or laughing my arse off.

I do neither; instead I tell her that she was right about my fancying her mate Lisa, and we get into a big blowout fight that gets us politely invited to leave the program early.

"We didn't even get to sing Kumbaya," Antoinette complains as she starts up the car.

"I could sing it for you now."

"You could walk the whole way to Dublin, too. Just because something's possible doesn't mean you're going to do it."

-

There's a couple of days of lining up pieces after that. All we've proven is that the groundskeeper is into disturbing arts 'n' crafts projects; but O'Neill's lads turn up phone records of him in the area, a ping on his credit card of him filling up his car near the Murphys' the night of the murder, the bits and detritus a person leaves as they go through the world. It's enough details to pull him in and try to shake something out of him.

I've got nothing going the day they bring him in, and this was one of my cases, after a fashion, so I watch the interrogation through the glass.

O'Neill brings up the blood circles, shows him the picture that I took, to see what reaction it gets.

Apparently it gets him a full confession.

"Jaysus, he didn't even get to the phone records yet," Antoinette mutters, annoyed. Could be she's annoyed O'Neill's getting the solve, could be she's annoyed we went to all the trouble of going undercover just for the perp to confess so early on, could be she's annoyed that the mystic crap was important after all. Antoinette's very democratic about her annoyance.

"Never complain about a solve," I tell her. "Might be you won't get another."

"Don't get superstitious on me."

"I'm just saying, don't borrow trouble."

"You want to turn out like that one," she gestures through the glass, "sacrificing animals and people to some made up hocus pocus?" 

"Who's to say it's all made up?" I ask. "There was that voice -- "

" -- you getting jumpy out in the woods, doesn't mean a thing."

"Lead us right to the clue that cracked the case."

"Are you saying we couldn't have figured it out without -- what, ghosts or psychics or something?"

"Just saying. Something out there helped us out."

Antoinette shakes her head, but fondly. "Ah, you're daft."

"No way to really know."

She turns to leave.

"Just like that, and you're giving up on our marriage? The shrinks'd say you're supposed to listen to my crackpot ideas!"

She smiles over her shoulder at me. "Got to go find myself a geezer with a load of grandkids." Then she adds, wicked, "I'll tell Lisa you're back on the market."

"Please don't!" I call, but she's already shut the door behind her.

I get a load of terrifying texts from her that night, including a photo of Lisa making a kissy face at the camera and Antoinette laughing in the background.

I think about turning my phone off, but. Communication is the key to a good relationship, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic you can [reblog it on tumblr](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/169212914240/til-death-shinealightonme-dublin-murder-squad).


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